District 19

Vallone Proposes Bill to Monitor Mayor de Blasio’s Jobs Plan Progress

City Hall – At Wednesday’s Stated Meeting, Council Members Paul A. Vallone and Ritchie Torres introduced legislation that would require the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) to deliver an annual report on the progress of attaining the job creation goals set forth in the Mayor’s New York Works initiative. The report would be delivered to the City Council and published on the New York Works website every year until 2027.

In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the New York Works jobs plan, which set out to create 100,000 “good-paying jobs” over the course of 10 years. However, a March 18 joint committee hearing of the Committees on Economic Development and Oversight and Investigation revealed a need for additional data on the progress of the jobs plan and who has obtained employment under the program, spurring committee chairs Vallone and Torres to introduce today’s reporting bill.

The report would deliver specific data about job creation progress and information about employed individuals under the program disaggregated by education level, race and ethnicity, gender, and whether the individuals are residents of New York City. Data would also be broken down by salary, borough, company, and the number of jobs per contract if the company is contracted by the city.

A New York Works Progress Update published after the March hearing reported that EDC has “directly created 3,725 full-time, private sector jobs, of which 3,072 (or 82%) are good-paying jobs.” Good paying jobs are defined as jobs that pay $50,000 or more per year or are on a pathway to paying that wage.

“While the New York Works jobs plan presents an ambitious workforce development plan for our city, projections and estimates do not provide tangible evidence that these efforts are actually materializing into real jobs for our New Yorkers,” said Council Member Paul Vallone, Chair of the Committee on Economic Development. “Transparent reporting at a granular level would help develop a clear jobs plan that defines how the city is going to build on the great work that EDC has been doing for years while ensuring that New Yorkers of every background are being connected to truly good paying jobs.”

Vallone and Torres hope to soon have a hearing on the bill in their respective committees.